PamS's 2024 Buffet Challenge

[Pam]

Since I just joined the group and am joining this challenge so late in the year, I'm only going to do 2 of the challenges, using books I've read this year. I will have to go back and see which short stories I've read so far and fill in my A-Z (only 4 letters left - P, Q, U, and X) .

Challenge #5 - Short Story
Challenge #16 - A-Z Title

[Pam]

Challenge #5 - Short Story
Read 24 short stories - Completed on Oct 14

1. The Line by Amor Towles
2. The Ballad of Timothy Touchett by Amor Towles
3. Hasta Luego by Amor Towles
4. I Will Survive by Amor Towles
5. The Bootlegger by Amor Towles
6. The DiDomenico Fragment by Amor Towles
7. Eve in Hollywood (novella) by Amor Towles
8. Two Talented Bastids by Stephen King
9. The Goodbye Cat by Hiro Arikawa
10. Bringing up Baby by Hiro Arikawa
11. Good Father/Bad Father by Hiro Arikawa
12. Cat Island by Hiro Arikawa
13. The Night Visitor by Hiro Arikawa
14. Life is not Always Kind by Hiro Arikawa
15. The White Cat's Divorce by Kelly Link
16. The Lagoon by Janet Frame
17. Keel and Kool by Janet Frame
18. Two Sheep by Janet Frame
19. The Teacup by Janet Frame
20. Lolly-Legs by Janet Frame
21. They Never Looked Back by Janet Frame
22. Two Widowers by Janet Frame
23. My Cousins Who Could Eat Turnips by Janet Frame
24. Dossy by Janet Frame

Extras:
25. A Note on the Russian War by Janet Frame
26. The Regular by Ken Liu (4.5 stars)
27. The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami (2 stars)
28. Good Hunting. Ken Liu (4 stars)
29. A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel. Ken Liu (4 stars)
30. Mono No Aware. Ken Liu (4.5 stars)

[Pam]

A-Z Title challenge
*- Optional letter
^ - Currently reading

A - Artificial Condition by Martha Wells 4 stars
B - Burma Sahib by Paul Theroux 4 stars
C- Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior 5 stars!
D - Death's End by Liu Cixin 3.75 stars
E - Every Leaf a Hallelujah by Ben Okri 5 stars!
F- Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis 4 stars
G- Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov 5 stars!
H- The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng 5 stars!
I- Soseki Natsume's I Am A Cat: The Manga Edition 4.5 stars
J - Just Call Me Superhero by Alina Bronsky 3 stars
K - The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith 4 stars
L - Less by Andrew Sean Greer 4 stars
M - Maigret and the Toy Village by Georges Simenon 2.75 stars
N - Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips 5 stars!
O- Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney 5 stars!
P - Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler 4 stars
Q - Quicksand by Nella Larsen 4.5 stars
R- The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis 3 stars
S- The Secret History by Donna Tartt 3 stars
T- Table for Two by Amor Towles 5 stars!
^U - Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman
V - The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez 3.5 stars
W - What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama 5 stars!
X - XOXO by Axie Oh 3.5 stars
Y - Yellowface by R.F. Kuang 3 stars
Z - A Zoo in My Luggage by Gerald Durrell 4.25 stars

[Wobbley]

Welcome to the group! It looks like you've done a lot of very satisfying reading this year.

[Terris]

Pam, it's nice that you can join the buffet reading challenges. Even this late in the year you have lots of good reading time left! And though you only chose two challenges, it looks like you are almost finished with them! You've done lots of good reading so far this year (but many I've never heard of and will have to look into!). I especially liked "Table for Two" and "What You are Looking For is in the Library"!

Keep Reading! You may have to step up to the buffet and add more challenges to your reading plate :)

[Pam]

Wobbley wrote: "Welcome to the group! It looks like you've done a lot of very satisfying reading this year."

Thank you! Yes, I have. I just realized that I didn't list most of my classics. I just listed the first book that I read starting with the given letter. Do members usually list all of the books or just one? I'm so close to completing an A-Z challenge, which I've never done before, that I thought I might as well try to finish it!

[Pam]

Terris wrote: "Pam, it's nice that you can join the buffet reading challenges. Even this late in the year you have lots of good reading time left! And though you only chose two challenges, it looks like you are a..."

Thanks Terris for your comments! I'm trying to finish some challenges in other groups so I didn't want to get too ambitious right now. I also have 2 library book club reads and 2 GR group reads to tackle in the next few months. Next year, I'm interested in doing the fiction-non-fiction challenge. I already have a few ideas for it!

[Wobbley]

Pam wrote: "I just realized that I didn't list most of my classics. I just listed the first book that I read starting with the given letter. Do members usually list all of the books or just one?"

You can do it however you like! For the A-Z challenge I most often see people list 1 book per letter.

[Pam]

Finished Challenge #5 but am going to keep adding to it since I have 1 collection that I plan to finish this year and one that I will reread part of for a sci-fi book club read in December. Almost done with the A-Z Title.

Looking forward to planning for 2025!

[Wobbley]

Pam wrote: "Finished Challenge #5 but am going to keep adding to it"

Well done completing your first challenge! And yes, planning the challenges is one of the funnest parts :)

[Shaina]

Congratulations, Pam! I see you have so many 4 or 5 star reads on the A-Z challenge. That's really wonderful! Some of them are on my TBR, so it's good to know you enjoyed them.

[Pam]

Thanks Shaina and Wobbley!

[Lynn, Old School Classics]

Very nice completing the short stories. Welcome to the Challenges.

[Pam]

Lynn wrote: "Very nice completing the short stories. Welcome to the Challenges."

Thank you Lynn! I am going to finish up the year by reading a few more. I like that we can count random stories without reading an entire collection.

Just finished Parable of the Sower for a title starting with P. Just have the letters Q, U, and X left. Some choices: Quicksand by Steve Toltz, Quicksand by Nella Larsen, Xingu, The Underpainter, Utopian Man.

[Wobbley]

Pam wrote: "Just finished Parable of the Sower for a title starting with P. Just have the letters Q, U, and X left. Some choices: Quicksand by Steve Toltz, Quicksand by Nella Larsen, Xingu, The Underpainter, Utopian Man."

You're so close! Actually, if you wanted to, you could finish with just the U: you've already done Y and Z, so Q and X are optional.

[Annette]

Pam wrote: "Lynn wrote: "Very nice completing the short stories. Welcome to the Challenges."

Thank you Lynn! I am going to finish up the year by reading a few more. I like that we can count random stories wit..."

Good job on the Alphabet Reads! For what it's worth, Larsen's Quicksand & Wharton's Xingu are very short. I loved Xingu.

[Pam]

Annette wrote: "Pam wrote: "Lynn wrote: "Very nice completing the short stories. Welcome to the Challenges."

Thank you Lynn! I am going to finish up the year by reading a few more. I like that we can count random..."

Thanks Annette! Those are the 2 I'm considering. I was going to read Quicksand next year for a group read but I can read it early, if I can find a copy.

[Pam]

I found a title starting with X - XOXO by Axie Oh. YA Romance is a genre I never read but this one has my interest so far. Why not??

[Annette]

Pam wrote: "Annette wrote: "Pam wrote: "Lynn wrote: "Very nice completing the short stories. Welcome to the Challenges."

Thank you Lynn! I am going to finish up the year by reading a few more. I like that we ..."

I read Quicksand on hoopla.

[Pam]

Thanks Annette! I found Quicksand on Hoopla also, ebook and audio. I don’t know what’s going with Hoopla but you have to download in the early hours after midnight. Otherwise, the library hits their limit and you have to wait until the next day!

[Pam]

Finished XOXO by Axie Oh for my X title (A-Z titles). Starting my Q title (Quicksand by Nella Larsen) today and will have one left - the letter U! I’m so close.

XOXO is a YA Romance with a Korean American student set mostly in Seoul, South Korea. I enjoyed it just for a fun, light read. A few too many coincidental meet-ups to be believable but it was better than I expected. I gave it 3.5 stars.

[Wobbley]

Well done -- almost there!

[Annette]

Yay, Pam!

[Pam]

Reading Quicksand and listening to Under the Greenwood Tree on audio. Should be done by Friday!

[Pam]

Finished Quicksand (4.5 stars) and am reading Up the Down Staircase for the letter U. It's much more interesting than Thomas Hardy (Under the Greenwood Tree)! I will be done before Christmas.

[Wobbley]

4.5 stars is awesome! I hope you enjoy Up the Down Staircase as much!

[Lynn, Old School Classics]

Congratulations Pam! I agree with what you said about reading individual stories. Reading individual short stories has really expanded my knowledge of authors and genres. They're fun! I might buy several collections and spend a year or more slowly reading the entries, mixing them up. Plus so many short stories by Old School authors are available as PDFs online.

[Pam]

Thanks Lynn! I like short stories but I usually can’t read a whole collection at one time, with a few exceptions like Daphne du Maurier and Ken Liu. I have a bunch of collections to read from next year. I like being able to read here and there and not feeling like I have to finish the whole book to count it for a challenge. The SimplyE app has a lot of classic short stories, especially Sci-fi.